The Way of Virtue
by vampireisthenewblack
Summary: His outward youth intrigues me, knowing the experience that resides within. Alec was over a thousand years old when I was born to my human life, yet I look at him and see a compellingly beautiful child. Carlisle/Alec. Slash. NC-17. Canon. Warning in A/N.


**The Way of Virtue by vampireisthenewblack**

**Summary:** Perhaps it is his outward youth that intrigues me, knowing the experience that resides within. Alec was over a thousand years old when I was born to my human life, yet I look at him and see a compellingly beautiful child. Carlisle/Alec. Slash. NC-17. Canon.

**Warnings:** Intergenerational sex (consensual).

**A/N:** This story was written months ago, originally for the **Beyond the Pale** contest. I wrote two stories, then picked one. The one that I entered was **Fire, Blood, Truth **(find it on my profile). The reason I didn't pick **The Way of Virtue**, was because I was concerned that Carlisle paired with Alec as I write him would be...too beyond the pale ;) Of course, in a couple of ways, this story is far less taboo than the other one.

**Dellaterra** did a most excellent beta job on me. She writes an impeccable story, too, you should check her twi25 out, she's doing vampire Garrett, starting with a slashy one-shot. Another pimp today, goes to **afragilelittlehuman**, who wrote Numb for my Make the Yuletwi'd Gay prompt. Edward/Alec vampslash. Delicious!

* * *

_Books lie open, abandoned. Discarded clothing litters the floor. I hover above a beautiful boy on a bed never used for sleeping._

~v~

As I look around at the vampires within the chamber, my gaze is drawn inexorably to a pair so diminutive I at first think them children. I am not much mistaken, I find, when I look closer. The boy and girl are so alike in look and gesture that they surely were siblings in life and had most certainly been created in those few years between childhood and adulthood. Now they are trapped in an immature form for eternity.

I turn to Aro at my side. "How did this happen?" I ask, attempting to conceal my shock.

Aro brushes his fingers over my bare hand, and I realise it is futile to hide any emotion or thought. He smiles knowingly as he tells the tale of their creation and his part in it. I admire him for his patience, for his desire to see them grow to adulthood—though his plans were thwarted—before this life was thrust upon them.

"And now they are not one thing or another," he says, a sadness in his voice. He cheers quickly, however, in a shift of mood with which I am already becoming familiar. "But they live," he rejoices. "And that is something to be thankful for, is it not?"

I cannot disagree. To lose two to the fires—I who have seen so many innocents burn at my father's hand—I cannot think of a worse fate.

Not even that of eternal adolescence.

~v~

_"Kiss me," he whispers, and I do, a mere brush of my lips against his before I slowly enter his body. His eyes close and a soft whimper escapes him. I pause._

_"No...I need you inside," he pleads._

~v~

The boy's face is easily the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Still with the softness and roundness of childhood, full lips and large eyes, it has a divinity I have never seen before, and I think that even Botticelli could not have created such perfection. There is an innocence to him, an openness, and a fragility that urges me to offer protection.

Oh, that this child could have been offered a choice. Not the choice to live or die—for I cannot bear the thought of him not existing—rather, the choice between Aro's diet and mine.

I try to imagine his scarlet irises with a golden hue. I wish I could have been the one to bring him into this life. I want him to be mine.

"Carlisle." Aro drifts toward me, surrounded, as ever, by his personal guard. He holds out one pale, long-fingered hand to me and I take it. "You want him," he says.

"I'm sorry." I plead forgiveness for my thoughts. "I cannot but imagine...so young, so innocent. If he had only had the choice."

Aro's delighted laughter rings out in the chamber, drawing glances and smiles.

The subject of our conversation and his sister turn as one, both appraising me with their stares. Despite their diminutive forms, they command a respect that I felt even before Aro described their respective gifts to me.

Jane's gaze is uninterested, and she turns away almost immediately. Her brother, however, allows his eyes to linger, his head tilted slightly, a tiny smile on his full lips. I do not feel the discomfort, the apprehension, under his intense scrutiny that I feel under her passive gaze, though I know his gift is as potent as that of his sister.

And so I feel free to study him in turn. Perhaps it is his outward youth that intrigues me, knowing the experience that resides within. Perhaps it is the soft cherubic beauty, an aesthetic so different from the typical vampire perfection.

I am the child in this gathering. Apart from myself, the youngest among the Volturi Guard has two centuries behind him. I have only decades. Alec was over a thousand years old when I was born to my human life, yet I look at him and see a compellingly beautiful child.

The smile on his lips pulls wider, his chin drops just a little, and long lashes fall over brilliant scarlet eyes. I am used to seeing these eyes now, so different in colour from my own, but it reminds me of another difference between the two of us. I have just returned from a hunt timed to coincide with their feeding. I found it altogether too painful to stay for that, and now I find it difficult to imagine the petite boy engaging in such a method of sustenance.

Yet the evidence is there before my eyes.

"You may give him the choice if you like." Aro gestures, and the tiny vampires join us. "Alec, our new friend Carlisle wonders what you would look like with eyes the colour of his. What do you say to that?"

I cannot tear my eyes from the child. His polite smile of greeting spreads into amusement and he looks at me with curiosity. At his side, his sister, so like him, her lips just a little fuller, her hair a little lighter, looks at me disdainfully. "All the more for me," she says, her voice flat and emotionless, before she walks away.

The boy stays. "How many animals would I have to eat to make my eyes yellow like yours?" he asks, wrinkling his nose.

"I'm sure I don't know," I tell him. "I've never fed on anything else. But you are welcome to join me when next I hunt."

He seems to consider it for a moment, but then he laughs, and so does Aro, and I am disappointed because I know he never entertained the possibility.

"Don't take it personally, dear Carlisle," Aro consoles. "Alec is young. He has little patience for anything not to his tastes."

Alec shoots Aro a disapproving scowl, likely for the comment on his youth, but Aro only laughs and drifts off with his entourage.

"I am older than you, you realise?" he informs me when we are as alone as two beings can ever be in this chamber filled with vampires.

"I do," I reply, taking note of the way his lips seem fuller with a petulant pout upon them.

His face softens, and he smiles. "Come. Let me show you the city."

I take the hand he offers. It is so small in mine.

~v~

_I push further. I fill him as he inhales in quick gasps. His body holds me tightly, his slender thighs grip my hips. He exhales, and his sweet breath wraps around me, intoxicating me, and I rock against him._

_A moan comes from deep within his chest. "More," he demands, small fingers clutching at my shoulders. _

~v~

A quiet knock on my chamber door disturbs my reading. I give Alec—for it is he who waits—leave to enter. "Does Aro wish to see me?" I ask, because that is the only reason any of the guard have come to my chamber before now.

The boy shakes his head. "No. This is, perhaps, a social call if you do not mind my company."

I mark my page and place the book on the small table beside me. "Of course. You are quite welcome."

The boy stands before me, though there is another chair in the room. It has always been empty, as I have had no visitors. It is strange to me to have him looking down at me. I stand, and the gesture brings me a step closer to him. His chin lifts smoothly as his eyes follow mine. His expression is open, innocent, guileless. I cannot reconcile what I know of him, of his vast years, of his ancient life, to his youthful face and demeanour.

"Tell me," he says. "Have you truly never tasted human blood?"

"Never." Of course. It is his curiosity that brings him here to me.

"I cannot imagine what that must be like," he says, his perfectly shaped eyebrows drawing together, creating the tiniest crease between them. "But no doubt many hundreds of human lives have been spared that would otherwise have been lost were it not for your remarkable restraint."

"Indeed, that is my reason." Over a thousand years and more, I wonder how many of those lives he has taken, and somehow I know that he is thinking the same thing. The subject hangs in the atmosphere between us, remaining unspoken as we gaze at each other.

"Compassion," he says softly. "I feel it about you, as if you are made of it. You _are_ kindness. It draws me to you."

The tilt of his head, the pleading look in his eyes, the soft words that tumble from his full lips force me to move closer, unable to resist reaching out in comfort. I palm his cheek, and he leans into my touch. My thumb brushes his lip, and he kisses it. His eyes drift closed as he sighs. Has he been denied kindness? Does he yearn for it? A child he seems, truly, and one that seeks comfort and affection.

Yet I have seen Aro give it; he treats Jane and Alec both as cherished children. He is the closest thing they could have to a father in this life, but he has no true compassion in him. Even I, considering him a friend, can see that.

"What can I do?" I ask. "Tell me what you need."

The boy's eyes open, and beneath his lashes they blaze with a unique intensity. His lips part in a display of entirely innocent sensuality. He lifts his chin and rises up on his toes. As if by instinct—because I am surely not thinking—I lean down to meet him, and our lips touch.

~v~

_I pull out slowly, I cannot help the sob of restraint that shakes my body as I plunge deep inside him, holding back only for the irrational fear that I may hurt the small, slight body that lays beneath me._

_I am overwhelmed. I capture his delicate mouth with mine, tasting his tongue, revelling in the feel of his fingers in my hair. I move slowly inside him, emotion and his close warmth allowing me to think of nothing else but my need of him._

~v~

"I have had it since I was human," I tell him as he strokes the leather binding of the book I have placed in his hands. "I want you to have it."

He looks up in shock. "Are you certain?"

"Of course." In truth I had read the book many times since I had come to Volterra, since I had first laid eyes on Alec. It was too easy to justify my desires for him while absorbing the speeches within. "A poor gift, perhaps; Aro's library has much finer books, but it was one I had on my person when I was changed. A little piece of the man I once was and try to be still."

"Thank you, Carlisle. I will cherish it." A humorous smile twists his lips. "For eternity. And you are still that man. A better man, even, with the restraint you show, the compassion that guides your every action, the denial of your nature. All who know you respect you." He looks back down at the book and lets it fall open to a well-read page. "_He is right in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good,_" he quotes before moving to another part of the text. "_This is the way of virtue._"

~v~

_Short fingernails dig into the flesh of my back as he arches beneath me, gasping and crying out at every thrust of my hips. The noises he makes are small, soft, like the mewling of a cat, his head thrown back in utter abandon. My tongue is on his beautiful throat; I want to taste him, keep tasting him. I want to melt into him, become a part of him._

~v~

Sin, my father's faith tells me. Sin twice over to want him, to desire him. I was drawn to him first by his beauty, but as our friendship grows and I see more of his brilliance, his self, his hunger for my company and my conversation, I grow to need his closeness. Our chaste kisses of friendship, of greeting and farewell, are no longer enough, but it would be corruption for me to find pleasure in the body of a child, no matter how many centuries had contributed to his mind.

If only he had had a few more years of life, had grown taller, had truly become a man instead of the boy that he now is.

I ignore the thought that tugs at me, that perhaps I would not want him if that were so.

~v~

_His cries grow louder, come quicker, as my movements hasten. He's tight, so tight around me and I cannot help but thrust hard and deep, cannot control my possessing of him completely. His hands clutch the bedclothes, grasping, tearing the cloth, then he goes rigid, his legs around my waist pulling me in as he cries out, louder this time. He calls out my name as the hardness pressed against my belly surges and wetness spreads between our joined bodies._

~v~

"There is honour in yielding to the good."

"To what good do I yield, Alec? To what good is this?" I gesture at the small space between us. Too small, and yet too large as well.

His lips curve in a knowing smile, and he reaches up to clasp his hands around my neck. He must pull me down, even as he pushes up on his toes in order to bring his face close to mine. "It is not you who must yield," he whispers into my ear before dragging plump lips across my cheek to rest against the corner of my mouth. "Take me," he says. "You have given me so much. Let me give you this."

I am weak. Wrapping my arms about his waist I lift him from his feet as I turn and taste his lips. I fear that I may undo every good thing I have done, and still I cannot stop.

The boy, triumphant, wraps his legs tightly about my hips. He weighs nothing, yet he is stronger than I, more resilient, but I handle him as carefully as if he were a human child.

He is a tempter, wanton and hungry as he explores my body with his hands, loosening my clothing and his own. Touching, tasting with his tongue and lips. Shifting his body against me, against my very evident arousal.

All rational thought is gone. All I know is that the beautiful boy whom I have so admired has my coat off and my clothing unfastened, his delicate hands upon my naked chest. Yet it is I who devours his perfect lips, who savours his taste, who holds his head in my hands, my fingers threaded through his hair.

Though I do not need to breathe, I inhale through my nose, surrounding myself in his scent. So fresh, so new, like all of this.

He releases me, dropping to the floor with barely a sound, and I think he has come to his senses. I expect horror and betrayal on his face, but there is only a fierce determination as he throws off his own coat and with vampire speed unclothes himself to the waist.

I grasp him by the upper arms as he reaches out for me once more. "Stop. We cannot do this." My fingers encircle his slender biceps. I can feel the definition of the muscles under his skin, frozen in their beginning development. I slide my hands up over his narrow shoulders and groan with restraint because he is so beautiful.

I surrender and allow him to break my grip as he pushes me backward until my knees hit the bed I had deemed unnecessary before now. He's stronger than I because he feeds on human blood. It confuses me further. He is older, stronger, but his form is so young, so soft and undeveloped.

Somehow I find myself on the bed, laying back as he straddles my body and tears at my clothing. He strips me bare before he climbs off and discards the rest of his clothing.

He stands with his arms at his sides, unashamed. It is the first time I have seen him thus, every inch of his skin exposed, and he reminds me of a colt, with long slender limbs and barely hinted muscle. I sit up, and we are eye to eye finally, and I can lean into him and touch and taste his naked flesh.

I cannot bear it any longer. I stand and once again lift him from his feet, lay him down upon the bed and cover him with my body.


End file.
